[832]. Pinkerton, Voyages and Travels, London, 1808 ff., XI. 535, 543, 648.
[833]. Pinkerton, Voyages and Travels, pp. 652, 723.
[834]. Ibid., p. 667; no italics in the original. So, p. 654, twenty young women dance to their own singing, and in many other cases; the fact is beyond dispute. For a dance of more complicated character, but with chorus and refrain, see pp. 678 f.
[835]. Three Years’ Travel, etc., Phila., 1796; the travels were in 1766-1768. See pp. 171 ff., 220.
[836]. See Lescarbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle France, Paris, 1609, pp. 317 ff., an account of the tribal dances of the Algonquins in honour of a victory, with interesting particulars. So, too, pp. 691 ff., another account, with a dance where they “do nothing but sing Hé or Het! like a man cutting wood, with a movement of the arm; and they dance a ‘round’ without holding one another or stirring from one place, beating their feet upon the earth.” So, says Lescarbot, they make fires and jump through them, like our French peasants on the eve of St. John, who shout and dance the whole night. His fifteenth chapter, pp. 765 ff., is on Danses el Chansons, and accents the dance after a feast. Here, too, he says, “après la panse vient la danse.” Savages, he says, always sing to their dancing.
[837]. It is unfortunately not superfluous to suggest that the dances described by Homer are anything but primitive, though they retain some primitive traits. The dance pictured on the shield of Achilles (Il. XVIII.), youths dancing and fair maids, hand in hand, is a ronde, to be sure, in form, but a society affair as well, with full dress, complicated figures, and a “divine minstrel” for the music. However, the vintage dance to the Linos song, described in the preceding verses, holds, like our harvest refrains, an older fashion.
[838]. Ten Broeck, in Schoolcraft, IV. 84.
[839]. Clavigero, History of Mexico, trans. Cullen, London, 1787, I. 399 f., a description of the great public dances.
[840]. Schoole of Abuse, p. 34.
[841]. When M. Gaston Paris, Les Origines de la Poésie Lyrique en France au Moyen Age, p. 42, says he has found no dance among the old Romans except the professional dance, he overlooks the fact that this rustic dance in procession about the fields is proof of similar dances for pleasure. It is no professional affair which Vergil has in mind: det motus incompositos et carmina dicat. Surely the dances were not danced by slaves.